Maybe I was high from the THC of The Dark Knight when I wrote my review of the first issue of this series, or maybe, something happened to this prestige format book in its months off of the shelves. What could have happened too is that the creators also got high, probably on crazy pills, and wrote this issue. Regardless of what it was, this issue did nothing but disappoint in its delivery of the origin of Harvey Dent.

One of the things I really liked in the first issue was how the book was tying itself into other Batman stories, like The Long Halloween. The first issue also did a great job of painting Harvey’s background while juxtaposing it with his present. But in this issue, those things fall apart. While I enjoyed reading the parts of Harvey speaking with his psychiatrist, the way in which his “origin” as Two-Face connects to the stories various tie-ins is ponderous. For example, the story ties into what has happened in The Long Halloween, yet in the story, the Penguin owns a club, which, if I recall, didn’t happen until the last few years. There’s also a scene in Arkham where Harvey has a fake trial, and strangely, Man-Bat is in the jury, cawing away his guilty verdict. It’s things like this that very much too me out of the story. There’s also the ties to Batman: Year One, but the ties are not well placed and don’t mesh well with The Long Halloween. I’m not usually one to complain about continuity, but when the creators are making a conscious effort to tie these things together, it should be more comprehensible. Also, the final confrontation between Gordon, Batman, and Harvey is so out of character, you want to bang your head against the wall.

Continuity/Story linking issues aside, I felt that the overall pace of the story was very rushed. There wasn’t enough development going on here, and I think the creators were relying on the fact that readers would have also read other Two-Face origins, like the ones found in Miller’s and Loeb’s stories. There’s just not enough meat in this issue that follows Two-Face. The story that goes on with Gordon and the new D.A. is superbly interesting to me, and it’s fun to see Harvey in background mucking it up. But this story would have benefited from having more room to breathe. It could have been a nice companion to the other stories of Dent’s rise to one of Batman’s greatest foes. But as it stands, it’s rushed and damn near incomprehensible by the final page. It’s just a big disappointment because as you read, you can see the potential in the pages.

The art in the issue is fine, and it conveyed the story well. I enjoyed it from a visual standpoint, but there wasn’t anything overly spectacular. There were also a few panels where a figure looked weird or a story sequence wasn’t laid out well. Also, in the final fight scene, there’s lots of guns going off and no reference for where the bullets go, or bullets flying with no reference as to who pulled the trigger.

In all this book was a big disappointment, but at the same time, I’m happy to give it shot because books like these can sometimes help us remember what we love about certain characters. While this book didn’t deliver like I’d hoped, I’d still be interested in having someone else take a crack at it later down the road.